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Saturday, May 8, 2010

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Nothing to see here, non-University of Chicago people! This is a special post just for the UC scavenger hunt, so these are NOT the Wrecks you're looking for. Move along, move along.

What, you're still here? Ok, fine, here's some background info:

"The University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt was founded in 1986 by (yep, you guessed it) a bunch of nerds from the University of Chicago. Over time, it has grown to become what many consider to be the world's largest scavenger hunt, with items ranging from homemade nuclear reactors, to elephants, to the one you're about to see right here. A cabal of University of Chicago student judges write all Scav Hunt items and awards points to final submissions, keeping the list secret until the beginning of the Hunt, and teams race to beg, borrow, steal, and do as many of the 250+ items on each year's list over a four day timespan."

Well, this year I was honored to have Cake Wrecks included on the famous list! Here it is, clue #79:

"It’s Scav Inger Hunt's 23rd birthday, and 99.9% of mohawked baby carrot judges agree: I WANT SPRINKLES. Craft a thoughtfully artistic, yet still scavvly commemorative cake, and it better be purdy enough to be featured as a CakewrecksScavday Sweet. Under Neat That: submit your Wreck by Friday at 10 pm, and we’ll let Jen pick the one destined for internet fame."

(True story: When John & I first saw this he asked who it was supposed to be, and I guessed "Edward." I'm not sure who that insults more: Twi-hards or Team Breckinridge. So...sorry, everyone.)

From Sonia A.'s team, a "wooden labyrinth game":

In Sonia's words: "We tried."

Stop the press! Someone on the Snell-Hitchcock team actually has a working knowledge of fondant:

Not bad! Definitely the nicest cake you'll see here today, although I haven't a clue what all the stuff is. (Other than the sombrero. [Assuming it IS a sombrero])

The Federation of Independent Scav Teams claims this is a wreckplica of several items on the list:

Which frightens me. What else is ON this list, anyway? 0.o

From Macpierce's Master Chef Allison:

"Scab Hurt" Heh. Heh.

From the Burton-Judson Team (aka "Dr. Scodel's League of Atrocious Wonders"):

Christine tells me they were going for cute, "but I think something might have gone wrong."

From the Glass Panopticon:

Ah, classic Wreck elements. I like it.

And finally, the Max P Team used real honest-to-goodness carrot jockeys, in addition to "misspellings, left out numbers, poo swirls, ant sprinkles, a rainbow of various other sprinkles, and an umbrella, all to top off a CCC shaped like a furby":

Yep, I'd say we have a winner!

Best of luck to all the teams who participated.

(Naturally, any team that didn't submit a Wreck should be doomed to failure.)Thanks for the fun!

Hee hee. I don't know what this is about, but we shouldn't let these people loose in a bakery. God forbid they get a hold of the pro's tools, like airbrushes and plastic flotsam. :) Great efforts, the lot of 'em!!!

These are all absolutely Wrecktacular! But I agree that the final pic is the Winner Hands Down. I guess this means that you're an official celeb, Jen. Great job to all the participants and big congrats to you for the honor.

I am stunned! Although, I have to say that the whole scavenger hunt idea is a very creative and relatively harmless idea for "dead week" activities.Unlike when I was at Rice and some people would etch "things" on rival dorm buildings with dorm room made lasers. I have to agree that the CCC won the competition.

Backstory we were watching 90's tech on Modern Marvels and my two year old fell in love with the Furby. I dug in the back of the closet and found my actual Furby that her Dad gave me back when we were dating. She has christened it Owl (and she's right that's what it looks like)

I showed her the "Furby" cake and said "hey look it's a cake of Owl." She looked at it raised a sceptical eyebrow and said, "Uhhh no."

Frightening to think that these might take on a status of their own. Oh, it looks like that has happened. "Umm, professional baker, can you make me a really digusting lump of fallen pastry with piles of poo." You are my morning's entertainment :-). Norine

Ah, so THAT'S what happens when you stick a My Little Pony in the microwave! The other cakes look a little too wrecky to be any good if that makes any sense at all LOL although I do love the fondant cake and the last one is wreckily adorable:)

One question though, why is there a llama on the Scab Hurt MacPierce cake? Is that the llama's name?

Definitely the "My Little Pony" was IMHO, the best (?) the only one that made me laugh out lound when I saw it..but guess your choice had more classic Wreck elements...still, I believe that pony cake is the most gawd-awful excuse for a cake I 've ever seen-and I love it!

As a member of the Max P team, I can assure you with confidence, it is a FURBY. But a wreck of a furby. One of our t-shirts reads, "Keep uchicago weird" on the front and has Demolition Furby destroying campus Tokyo style.

Love it!! I didn't know that Chicago had a scavenger hunt, but University of Waterloo's engineers do one with a list like this every year. Back when my friends and I were undergrads, I lived for the tales about their "skunt"!

Congrats Jen on making their list, and winning over some new fans! Now to send the link to my waterloo alumni friends...

I got very excited and was going to say that the last cake was Totoro...but after reading the comments and discovering it IS a Furby, I guess my happiness kind of withered away. LoL. I thought the umbrella was a dead give away. I suppose Totoro and Furby are similar, but Totoro wins in my book. ^-^ ...I'll just pretend it's Totoro.

Thank you so much for doing this for the Hunt, Jen.Yes, Max Palevsky's wrecktastic cake is definitely a "Demolition Furby."

I was on the Snell-Hitchcock team, and we (obviously) interpreted the item as "make a Sunday Sweet," which nobody else did. The items on top of the Snell-Hitchcock cake are an Easter Island statue, a vending machine, and a monowheel, all items we built in previous years. In addition to being gorgeous, it was delicious.

Yes!!! Thank you from one very happy U of C alumna :). When I was on a scav hunt team (oh goodness. Was that really fourteen years ago??) we had to create the world's most disgusting pizza, which was far less appetizing than these cakes. After loading ours with tripe and edible insects (plus some peanut butter to make it stick in the throat) the judges informed us that one of our team members had to eat a whole piece in order to get the points. we did it, but we would much rather have eaten any of these fine wrecktastic creations.

Such good memories! I remember when I lived in Max P and the hammering, drilling, and general insanity of the Scav team in the courtyard would drive me crazy- but it was always worth it in the end to see the stuff they came up with! Thanks Jen for voting Max P the winner, unfortunately it wasn't enough to prevent Snitchcock from ultimately winning the hunt :(

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What's a Wreck?

What's a Wreck?

A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

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